I just want to say one thing. There are a variety of things, of course, that we can do, but you asked how we can regain the trust of the public in terms of what government is doing. With due respect, there was one thing that took place last year that further eroded that trust. Prime Minister Trudeau was asked by the federal Privacy Commissioner to include political parties under the privacy laws. Mr. Trudeau said no. He basically did not go in that direction.
That was a most disappointing thing. Why wouldn't political parties be subject to privacy laws just like businesses and other government departments are? Unfortunately, there is not a lot that is increasing trust in government. With due respect, I think that was a very negative point. I think these are the things....
Also, Mr. Trudeau defended Stats Canada in their pursuit of very sensitive financial data from the public. There was a huge push-back to that. This has not been really disclosed: the banks offered the chief statistician at Stats Canada.... They said, “Okay, we will de-identify the data and remove all personal identifiers and then we will give you the data. You can have the data you need but it will be privacy protected because we're going to strip the identifiers.” What did Stats Canada say to that? They said, “No, we want the data in identifiable form.” From what I heard confidentially, there were a lot of data linkages that Stats Canada wanted to make with the very sensitive financial data of citizens. That is completely unacceptable.
I just give you that, ma'am, as an example of things that are eroding trust as opposed to increasing trust.
Thank you.